Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak should ensure that Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and UMNO-owned Utusan Malaysia listens first before giving advice that politicians had a responsibility not to make inflammatory remarks and journalists to report fairly and accurately. Otherwise Najib sounded insincere and even hypocritical when he spoke of a spirit of fairness and in the service of truth during the National Press Club (NPC) Awards 2014 last night.
There is a complete absence in Utusan of a spirit of fairness and in the service of truth. During a Biro Tata Negara seminar on 14 July 2012, Utusan Malaysia’s deputy chief editor Mohd Zaini Hassan openly admitted that they spin the facts, in other words lie, to paint a “desired picture” to the reader. Further Utusan does not believe in freedom of the press by refusing to observe one of its basic tenets of a right to reply by those maligned in their reports.
Why was there no action taken by Najib against Utusan for these serial lies and false outrageous claims? Utusan Malaysia had claimed that the CIA had a hand in “planning” the 9-11 attacks and could be linked to the tragic disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370! Even Utusan journalists have openly apologized for the lies published in their papers.
Zahid Using The Hitler Logic To Justify His Description Of Chinese As Ungrateful for Supporting DAP.
As for Zahid Hamidi, his behavior in the Teluk Intan by-election is overtly racist and blatantly bullying the Chinese community. Zahid said that Chinese voters, especially those with successful businesses, who choose DAP are “ingrates” because they are abandoning Malays and Indians who contributed to their wealth. It is wrong for Zahid to stereotype a community as wealthy when there are also poor Chinese.
How can Chinese be abandoning the Malays and the Indians by voting for the DAP? I do not know what logic Zahid is applying except to say that this is the same logic used by Hitler to justify his progroms against the Jews by describing them as ungrateful. In a democracy every citizen has a right to freely choose without fear or favour, without being subjected to threats or tempted by money and gifts.
What is the point of holding democratic elections if a voter can be branded as ungrateful for exercising his freedom of choice? Such inflammatory remarks by Zahid is clearly intended to create racial hatred and strike fear into the hearts of the Chinese community in Teluk Intan to force them to vote for BN. Najib should prove his consistency to practice what he had preached yesterday by immediately disavowing Zahid’s racist remarks.
Najib had snidely mocked PR by claiming that Malaysia could have claimed the Thomas Cup because Malaysia garnered 242 points to Japan’s 234 points but would not do so because this is against the rules. Clearly Najib was referring to Pakatan Rakyat questioning BN’s legitimacy to rule after PR won almost 52 % of the popular vote as compared to BN’s 47%.
Najib is wrong because every badminton set has the same number of 21 points, unlike in Malaysia’s gerrymandered electoral districts where the points are unequal. This has resulted in PR getting only 40% of the parliamentary seats despite obtaining 52% of the popular vote.
So long as the electoral districts do not have nearly the same number of voters(exemption for the special status of Sabah and Sarawak), which is equivalent to the same number points in a badminton set, there will be no “one-person, one-vote, one-value” principle essential in a functioning democratic elections.